good-5
Original: good-5 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman: God, why do bad things happen to bad people?
God (speech bubble, no visible body): Because this is the best of all— wait, what?
Panel 2:
Woman: Most of personality is determined by genes, development, and random events! Bad people don't choose to be bad, but now they have the double burden of being a bad person in a world that values goodness AND enduring punishments for their transgressions!
Panel 3:
Woman: If anything, good people should suffer! At least you granted them the internal contentedness that comes with a life of decency out of fairness, they should have to endure more travails.
Panel 4:
Woman (gesturing): [no text]
Panel 5:
Woman (turned, calmer): [no text]
Panel 6:
Woman: Why God, why?! Why do good things happen to good people?!
God (speech bubble, no visible body): Please slow down so I can take notes. I'm gonna use the shit out of this.
Votey:
Woman: Why do bad things happen to bad deities?
Woman: God, why do bad things happen to bad people?
God (speech bubble, no visible body): Because this is the best of all— wait, what?
Panel 2:
Woman: Most of personality is determined by genes, development, and random events! Bad people don't choose to be bad, but now they have the double burden of being a bad person in a world that values goodness AND enduring punishments for their transgressions!
Panel 3:
Woman: If anything, good people should suffer! At least you granted them the internal contentedness that comes with a life of decency out of fairness, they should have to endure more travails.
Panel 4:
Woman (gesturing): [no text]
Panel 5:
Woman (turned, calmer): [no text]
Panel 6:
Woman: Why God, why?! Why do good things happen to good people?!
God (speech bubble, no visible body): Please slow down so I can take notes. I'm gonna use the shit out of this.
Votey:
Woman: Why do bad things happen to bad deities?
Alt text
A six-panel comic. A brown-haired woman argues with God, who appears only as a speech bubble. She asks, "God, why do bad things happen to bad people?" God starts, "Because this is the best of all— wait, what?" She launches into a theological argument: most of personality is set by genes, development, and random events, so bad people don't choose to be bad yet bear the double burden of being bad in a world that values goodness and punishes wrongdoing. She continues that, if anything, good people should suffer more, since they were already granted inner contentedness from a decent life. In the final panels she demands, "Why God, why?! Why do good things happen to good people?!" God replies, "Please slow down so I can take notes. I'm gonna use the shit out of this." Votey: the woman, now talking to an unseen deity, asks, "Why do bad things happen to bad deities?" The joke is that her inverted theodicy is so persuasive God plans to adopt it.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.